You can't always get what you want
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
It’s been more than two weeks since lawmakers adjourned
for the year, so how are Rhode Island’s environmental groups feeling about the
state of the session?
Photo by Anne Dennish 2020
No one in politics gets everything they want, so perhaps
unsurprisingly, the results are mixed. The General Assembly passed a number of
longstanding environmental priorities, including a ban on per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in consumer products (with a few exceptions);
mandating state environmental officials write a coastal resiliency plan; and
dedicated funding for the state’s climate council.
But several other major priorities of environmental
groups were left on the committee room floor.
“We were pretty disappointed on the climate mitigation
front,” said Amanda Barker, Rhode Island policy associate for Green Energy
Consumers Alliance. “Rhode Island is not on track to achieve the emission
reductions mandated by the Act on Climate, and especially in the building
sector the Legislature did very little to change this session.”
Barker’s organization, together with the Acadia Center,
were the strongest proponents of energy benchmarking legislation, aimed at
reducing emissions from large buildings across the state.
The Building Decarbonization Act would have required owners of buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to begin tracking their energy use and emissions as early as next year. Data derived from the legislation would have been used to come up with emission reduction goals for large buildings, similar to an ordinance enacted last year by the city of Providence.
It’s an area of climate policy that’s sorely needed in
Rhode Island, as buildings account for 30% of emissions released in the state,
and reducing emissions in every sector is the only way the state will reach the
net-zero emission goals outlined in the Act on Climate law.
Others were more upbeat about the results of the session.
“I’m really happy with it,” said Emily Howe, interim
director of the state chapter of Clean Water Action. “We’re thrilled the
governor signed the consumer PFAS ban earlier this week.”
The ban on PFAS in consumer products was one of two major
pieces of legislation Clean Water Action (CWA) was aiming to get across the
finish line this year. Howe became interim director of the organization earlier
in June, after former director Jed Thorp left to be director of advocacy at
Save The Bay.
CWA’s other major priority didn’t pass muster this year.
The bottle deposit return bill, often more simply called “the bottle bill,”
would have created a redemption system for all single-use plastic bottles sold
in Rhode Island. The legislation, introduced late in the session by Rep. Carol
McEntee, D-South Kingstown, who also chaired the study commission on the issue,
faced strong opposition from industry groups that view it as an onerous burden
on businesses.
Howe pledged to continue work on the bottle bill in the
offseason, and praised the environmental committees in each chamber for their
work, and how seriously environmental issues were being taken on Smith Hill.
“It’s really nice to see the environmental community
involved and invested,” Howe said. “And truthfully that goes to what the Senate
president and speaker of the House have done.”
“We didn’t get everything we wanted, as you can imagine,
but we had a terrific session,” said Michael Woods, chair of the New England
chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA). “We were able to get a lot of
our long-standing priority issues resolved, and other bills we were happy to
see move forward.”
BHA’s major priority this year was a statewide ban on
captive, or canned, hunting — the practice of importing wildlife from outside
Rhode Island to hunt in an enclosed setting. BHA has been advocating for the
law since 2019, a year after the Preserve, an exclusive sports club and resort
in Richmond, lobbied the General Assembly to legalize the practice.
Woods singled out a shoreline access bill that will
require real estate agents to disclose the state’s new lateral shoreline access
law when selling waterfront property. Woods also noted two other shoreline
access bills, part of a package of legislation introduced in each chamber by
Rep. Terri Cortvriend, D-Portsmouth, and Sen. Victoria Gu, D-Westerly. Those
bills would have strengthened the ability of municipalities to maintain
shoreline access on abandoned roads, and allowed the state Coastal Resource Management
Council to designate historical footpaths as rights of way.
Two other major environmental priorities died in session
this year: reform of CRMC as the state’s coastal regulator and legislative
action on environmental justice bills that would have empowered environmental
officials to designate environmental justice zones.
“We’re definitely going to come back strong on the
Environmental Justice Act,” Barker said. “It was disappointing it didn’t even
end up getting a hearing in the House. We cannot keep allowing disadvantaged
communities to bear the burden of polluting facilities.”
The Environmental Justice Act, introduced by Sen. Dawn
Euer, D-Newport, and Rep. Karen Alzate, D-Pawtucket, would have required the
Division of Statewide Planning to use Census data to designate and periodically
update environmental justice zones based on income levels, large people of
color populations, or a high number of households without English proficiency.
Designated areas would then have additional requirements from entities
proposing to build industrial projects such as power plants, recycling facilities,
and incinerators.
“CRMC reform was one really big change we wanted to see
happen that ultimately didn’t make it across the finish line this year,” Woods
said.
BHA, along with Save The Bay and other environmental and
good government groups, backed legislation stripping the part-time, politically
appointed executive council of its powers, and giving them to the agency’s
executive director. Unlike a state agency like the Rhode Island Department of
Environmental Management, CRMC has empowered a 10-member council to make final
decisions within the agency.
It’s a quirk of government that has gotten the agency in
a lot of hot water over the past 20 years, as the oft-overlooked council has
made backroom deals with applicants, circumvented the General Assembly’s powers
for submerged land leases, and even struggled to act at all with repeated
quorum issues.
A cost estimate from the State Budget Office on this
year’s pair of CRMC reform bills estimated the cost between $2 million and $3
million, resulting in advocates alleging the estimate took big liberties when
reading the legislation.
It’s not the end of reflection about the session. Later
this year the Environmental Council of Rhode Island is expected to release its
report card that grades individual legislators and the General Assembly as a
whole when it comes to their actions and votes on environmental legislation.
